5 Motivational TED Talks for Your Job Search

There’s nothing like a little surge of motivation to keep your job search revved up. No matter the source, finding ways to keep your job search energized can make a huge difference. If you’re seeking just the right career inspiration, listening to a few motivational TED Talks might be just the thing.

Could be you’re struggling to find flexible work that’s a good fit for you, having doubts about your skills and qualifications, or dealing with rejection. No matter where you are in your job search, hearing encouraging advice, especially when it’s delivered with humor and wisdom, can recharge you when you’re in the thick of the job hunt.

Here are five great motivational TED Talks to help stay inspired during your job search:

This inspiring talk is aimed at people who feel they’re doing everything right in the jobs, but just aren’t moving up, Coleman posits: “If you, like me, believe that leadership manifests at every level, you would see that there’s a tremendous, awesome resource of leaders who are leading in middle management. which raises a different question: why are there so many women mired in the middle, and what has to happen to take them to the top?”

Coleman, an expert in finding solutions to close the leadership gender gap, offers illuminating insights for jobs seekers of all levels, with advice that’s aimed primarily toward women but useful for men as well.

After taking break in your career, no matter the reason, it can be difficult to get back on track. Cohen, a career reentry expert, suggests that an adult internship could be a way back in. A career “re-launcher” herself, Cohen tracks how many job seekers have successfully re-launched their own careers.

“Returning to work after a career break is hard because of a disconnect between the employers and the re-launchers,” Cohen says. “This disconnect is a problem that I’m trying to help solve.”

“There are great jobs and great careers, and then there are the high workload, high stress, blood-sucking, soul-destroying kinds of jobs, and practically nothing in between,” Smith says. “So the people looking for good jobs are going to fail.” Smith offers sage advice for people who may approach their careers with hesitation and fear of everything from failure to regret.

The focus of this talk is the almost intangible quality of “grit” as a predictor of success in many of life’s endeavors (like having a successful career). Duckworth, a psychologist whose academic and in-the-field work focuses on character development, talks about how perseverance can make a huge difference.

“What if doing well in school and in life depends on much more than your ability to learn quickly and easily?” Duckworth asks. “Growth mindset is a great idea for building grit,” Duckworth says. In other words, failing along the way is often key to succeeding in the long run.

A British philosopher and author, de Botton uses this TED Talk platform to explore how we view success and failure. “We live in an age when our lives are regularly punctuated by career crises, by moments when what we thought we knew about our lives, about our careers, comes into contact with a threatening sort of reality,” he says.

De Botton espouses a “kindler, gentler approach” to our careers that may help free us from some of the anxieties. Taking a fresh look at what success means to you can and choosing where to focus your energies and understanding “you can’t have it all.”